People usually have a love-hate relationship with JavaScript. It's got its beauty and its unavoidable quirks. We're all familiar with them. We can't deny that it's been an absolute powerhouse for the web, though.
You'll always find Js in the top 10 or even top 5 lists of most popular programming languages. It's also the #1 topic on dev.to!
But what if all of that suddenly went, like, POOF! 👻
Now now, where's this coming from?
First of all, special thanks to @technoglot for the inspiration!
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Her article asked this simple question: What would your tech stack look like if JavaScript didn't exist?
I'm a webdeveloper through and through. Naturally, I'd start unpacking all CSS-only solutions! However, I started thinking more about the implications of JavaScript's death, like...
✍ Comment below answering the following question
If JavaScript stopped existing, what language do you think should replace it?
Now, I understand that some programming languages aren't quite ready for things like DOM manipulation and such. Imagine these things would be implemented into said languages.
Or perhaps you have a better version of JavaScript in mind? 😮☝ Let me know!
Oldest comments (92)
Here's the post I was talking about @technoglot ! 💃✨✨ Hope you don't mind the lil poke at your own post's title.
My first thought was PHP, which I think is next-level Stockholm Syndrome compared to JS! 🤣 It's giving me physical pain just imagining it.
I would create javascript
Ha ha, very funny. 🙂
Maybe nowadays something could be done with Kotlin, I would rather not have to go to a solution from the past like PHP :)
I'd take Kotlin anyday over PHP! :) Great choice!
I've been quite interested in Rust as well! It definitely sounds like a great candidate to replace JS!
It's true that WASM has gone a long way, but within WASM there are quite a few language options, so I wondered which one people would consider the best choice to take JS's throne. :) Rust definitely sounds like a great one for that!
crystal would be nice. Looks like a scripting language but it has types. It's cool.
Never heard of it before, but it looks very neat! Thanks for sharing. 😄
At the moment, based on the agency I currently work for, I'd be using PHP. Why, you ask? Because that's what I do at the moment.
I'll occasionally break out the Javascript if it's needed, and I find it quite fun to be fair, but I wouldn't be particularly heartbroken if it disappeared overnight.
A very reasonable answer! PHP is still very relevant nowadays, so it's definitely not too far-fetched that it'd just take over again.
Does that matter? The question isn't asking about what you'd use if Javascript fizzled out due to old age, it's a genie-in-a-bottle hypotherical.
I don't particularly like PHP, but it's not going away any time soon...
Laravel was the best in teaching me good PHP. PHP was how I got started. Oh the days when you would submit a form to a php handler file that could just send emails directly...
I would imagine one of the old school alternatives to JS would have appeared, Flash, WPF / SIlverlight, ActiveX, VBScript.
And if none of them won I am sure we as developers would have come up with workarounds etc.
I mean I created an animation without JavaScript, CSS or images recently, so I am pretty sure we would have adapted somehow as long as we had HTML (or yet again, a close alternative)!
Shameless plug, but I take it! :p Your post was absolutely genius and I still think about it! Next up you're gonna make an entire framework that uses no HTML, CSS, or JS or something. 🤣
It's hard for me to imagine the web would revert back to these oldies. There's a good reason why some of them aren't even supported on browsers any longer, haha. But hey, who knows!
I mean it was so silly I had to share it. But yeah a bit of a shameless plug I admit!
I am building a website that only developers can use...watch this space for that one 🤣🤣🤣
But Flash ActionScript was ECMAScript... and JavaScript.. is ECMAScript
Well that is fair enough, I mean it is 10+ years since I played with Flash and so my memory obviously didn’t connect the dots!
Fun fact; ES4 was, partially, implemented in Flash, but JavaScript skipped that version.
the-real-story-behind-es4
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